Harry Burwell

Henry "Harry" Burwell (1727-) was a Continental Army colonel during the American Revolutionary War.

Biography
Henry Burwell was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1727, and he served in the colonial militia during the French and Indian War. Burwell fought alongside George Washington and Benjamin Martin, and he came to trust Martin with his life. When the American Revolutionary War broke out, the patriot Burwell decided to join the Continental Army, and he fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. In 1776, Burwell set out to recruit volunteers for the Continental Army, and he spoke at the South Carolina General Assembly in 1776, managing to secure a levy for the Continental Army after persuading 28 of the 40 delegates there of his cause. Martin's eldest son Gabriel Martin joined the army and served under Burwell's command; in 1780, the elder Martin joined Burwell after avenging his second son's death at the hands of the British Army by massacring a force of 20 British troops. Following the Battle of Camden, Burwell was the de facto commander of the American troops in South Carolina, and he commissioned Benjamin Martin as a colonel and tasked him with tying down the British in South Carolina. Burwell's regulars and Martin's militia would work together to defeat the British at the Battle of Cowpens, and Burwell told Martin that he was motivated to fight by his unborn son, who his wife was carrying back at Alexandria. In October 1781, his son was born, and he named him "Gabriel" in honor of Gabriel Martin, who had been killed by the sadistic British colonel William Tavington.